Sight Word Assessment (freebie)

FYI: The Aloha! Sight Word Game winner will be posted and announced after I get done with my day of soccer games and beach!

Lately, I've been seeing some Facebook posts from different blogs that are asking how do you manage sight word assessment and how many sight words Kindergarten students are expected to know for your school.  So I figured I would show you guys how I assess sight words and the list of words our district uses for Kindergarten.

Our district has adopted the Imagine It! reading curriculum.  The curriculum dictates that Kindergarten students should know 70 sight words by the end of the year.  That seems like a high number to me, but the gen ed Kindergarten teachers tell me that it's really not that hard for most students to learn them.  Since I have triplets in Kindergarten, I have to say that all 3 of them have learned the words pretty easily.  I really worked with them at the beginning of the year but not so much the 2nd half of the year.  Now my special ed students that I teach have a much more difficult time learning and RETAINING these 70 words.

All of the Kindergarten sight word games I make {if you want to check some out click here or here} contain these 70 words since that's what my students are expected to know.  I am planning on making some 1st grade games using the 1st grade list this summer.  I don't know if anyone would be interested in those.

Ok, on to how I manage my assessment.  My set-up looks like this:

I made a powerpoint with a black background and white letters.  I have the students read the word as I hit the enter key to go from slide to slide.  Since I can't take any video or pictures of my students due to confidentiality concerns, I had my youngest daughter stand in for the video!  She LOVES school and learning and anything teacherish so she was happy to oblige.  I don't know how well you can hear her responses but she read all the words!  

The things I like about this set-up is that I can position my paper behind the laptop, so the students can't see whether I mark their answers as right or wrong.  I try to not give feedback other than some occasional encouragement during the assessment, especially if they're getting them wrong.  I don't want them to get discouraged.  I also like how I'm not worried about finding flash cards or having the cards out of order than the list on the paper.  Since the students are only seeing one word at a time on the screen, they don't get overwhelmed with a big long list.

I don't know if anyone else would be interested in the powerpoint or my form that I use but I thought I would include it.

Click on this picture to download the powerpoint.  Now, you will need the ABCPrint font, but it can be downloaded here for free.  I liked this font, because the letters are all properly formed.  

Here's the form I use to monitor their progress.  I got the form from Mrs. Perkins' Dolch Words site {here} and made some adjustments for how I liked it.  Click on the picture below to download your copy.

So there you have it.  It's how I do sight word assessment in my class.  Do you have a good system?  I'd love to hear about it!